The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. "It's so over for Opera Place. Reps are telling buyers and at least one attorney that both of the project's twin towers have been canceled. Buyers of the West Palm Beach project's second tower already were notified their tower was canceled and their deposits were being returned."

"Sadly, relations between buyers and developers are considerably worse at another unbuilt West Palm Beach condo project. Last week, 24 would-be buyers at Palladio Terrace filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. They are demanding Palladio developer Merco Group return some of their deposit money. The luxury condo on North Flagler Drive is stalled, with no building plans, no bank loan and not enough sales."

"The Miami-based developer is knee-deep in another condo lawsuit, this one over a project in Miami-Dade County. There, about 60 buyers are suing because an entity owned by Merco hasn't gone through with redoing the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach into a condo hotel. 'We lost the opportunity to invest in other projects by investing here,' said Luis Maseda, one of the plaintiffs."

The St Petersburg Times. "Not long ago, popular south Clearwater Beach was teeming with tourists. But those hotels and others were knocked down or closed in recent years to make way for nine high-end condominium and hotel projects, valued at $1.4-billion. And more closures are expected."

"Somewhere amid the 'condo boom,' however, prices skyrocketed, the market softened, insurance rates escalated, and buyers vanished."

"What was supposed to be a time of great optimism, of unprecedented construction on the famed beach, has given way to quiet and an uncertain future. It could be many years before the rooms, and the millions of dollars in business, return to the beach. 'We might never make up for what we've lost,' said David Little, a real estate agent and redevelopment chairman for the Clearwater Beach Chamber of Commerce."

"The nine projects cover a nearly 1 mile stretch of S Gulfview Boulevard. Work on eight of them was to begin by the fall; the ninth was to start early next year. But all but one have stalled or changed."

"The market soon became oversaturated. In April 2005, there were 1,430 condos on the market countywide, and about 62 percent were selling. In April, there were 6,100 on the market, with 5 percent selling. 'People are saying 'enough is enough' and they're walking away,' said Ray Ferrara, president of a Clearwater-based financial planning firm. 'The prices simply got ahead of themselves.'"

"Even if developers break ground early next year, many say they'll still miss at least four tourist seasons. Rob Remeikis, who works at Big Kahuna's Wave Runners and Parasail, said the delays already are proving costly. 'This is going to kill the businesses out here,' Remeikis said. 'They're building these condos and no one is buying them. It's going to be a ghost town.'"

The Miami Herald. "The once spotless apartment is a gutted shell now, a place where junkies shoot up and urine saturates the carpet beneath layers of fast-food wrappers, tangled window blinds and broken glass. Five months ago, it was the tiny but pin-neat home of Martha Pomare and her two boys."

"All around the dilapidated Cameo, new condo towers are nearing completion. But Miami's overheated real-estate market has cooled, and projects that haven't broken ground face increasingly difficult conditions. The future of those projects remains in question."

"Many planned projects have stalled, Miami real-estate analyst David Dabby said. In many cases, those projects already had cleared out rental apartments and knocked the buildings down. 'If they had known the projects were going to bog down, they would have kept the buildings and collected rents to offset taxes,' Dabby said."

"Inside the Cameo, the newest residents are sleeping off last night's high. Nearly every apartment has been vandalized. Larry, stretched out on a lounge chair in a second-floor apartment, keeps headphones on to drown out the construction racket. He has lived in the complex 'a couple months,' he said."

"Martha Pomare, the former tenant who lived a few doors from the apartment where Larry now sleeps, says that learning what has become of the complex stings. 'We didn't have to leave,' she said. 'We could have been there all this time.'"

The News Press. "Tom Baker rents a furnished three-bedroom, two-bath condominium in the Cross Creek neighborhood of south Fort Myers for $1,000 per month, there's no way he's buying anytime soon."

"'This is the most overpriced area in the world, almost,' said Baker. 'We make good money, but I'll be damned if I'll buy it just to throw it away.'"

"Baker is not alone, experts say. Last year's wave of buying by investors followed by this year's bust in prices left an oversupply of houses whose owners are willing to rent at discount prices. They have given up on selling them for a profit, for now."

"The average rent for a two-bedroom, two-bath house in the Fort Myers area is $940, down from an all-time high of $1,041 less than a year ago."

"That comes as the supply of unsold houses has ballooned to more than 12,000 in Lee County. The median price has dropped 18.9 percent from the all-time high of $322,300 in December 2005 to $261,400 in September."

"'For Rent' signs are plentiful in neighborhoods in Cape Coral, Gateway and Lehigh Acres, where they were rare six months ago."

"Keith Hopkins, a real estate agent in Naples, said there has been a change in the type of people choosing to rent. Renters once were people who couldn't afford to buy, he said. 'The renter has changed,' Hopkins said. 'They're not renting because they can't afford to buy. They're renting because they think it's prudent at this point.'"

"Lee and Collier counties have a combined total of 30,000 homes on the market. Drew Schlosser noticed a year and a half ago that he was having a hard time getting anyone to help him rent his properties. So he started a real estate practice specializing in home leases from Estero to Bonita Springs"

"Now Schlosser's turning away would-be landlords because he has too much business. 'We can't take anymore,' he said."

"Randy Bacik, owner of Sanibel-based Royal Shell Vacations, said it's not just new owners who are feeling the need to rent. He said he has owners who owe nothing on their condos but have to pay $35,000 to $40,000 per year in condo fees, insurance and taxes."

"People are saying for the first time that they need to rent out their unit to defray those costs, Bacik said."

"Also contributing to the glut of rental homes is the conversion of numerous Southwest Florida apartments into condominiums in the past three years, said Brad Hunter, of Metrostudy."

"'Most of the rental units got converted and now some of them are reverting to rentals and others are joining the shadow market for rentals, being rented out by the owners,' Hunter said. 'Some of those owners thought they'd make a quick flip and sell, and their fallback plan was always to rent.'"